This invention relates to a patient mover and support apparatus for carrying a small child in an ambulance, transporting a small child to or from an ambulance on a stretcher, and inter-departmental stretcher transfer of a small child in a hospital or other medical facility. Presently, three methods are used in carrying a small child or infant in an ambulance. First, the child or infant is strapped onto a conventional patient mover designed for much larger patients. Second, an emergency medical attendant carries the child in the ambulance during the trip to the hospital. Third, a conventional child's car seat is carried on the ambulance and is used in transporting a child to the hospital.
All of the foregoing methods of carrying children in an ambulance have serious drawbacks. The straps used on conventional patient movers to secure a patient cannot be adequately adjusted to securely confine a small child or infant to the patient mover since these straps and the patient movers are designed for larger patients. Thus, a child may slip or be thrown from underneath the straps of a conventional patient mover during transit resulting in further injury to the child. The use of a conventional car seat is not always adequate since placing and carrying a child in a car seat could aggravate the injury or sickness of that child. Additionally, ambulances are so crowded with emergency equipment that often times pieces of emergency medical equipment have to be removed from the ambulance in order for a conventional car seat to be added to the equipment carried by the ambulance. Further, an emergency medical attendant who carries a child may not have a secure enough grasp on the child to keep the child from being flung from his arms if the ambulance makes an emergency stop or gets into an accident on way to the hospital.